And campaigners have insisted that children’s education must not be wrecked again by a return to home schooling.
On the eve of the return to classrooms, more than 100 schools across England have had to close buildings reinforced with “dangerous concrete” and bring back pandemic-era remote learning.
Head teachers and parents have been left scrambling to find village halls, churches and other community venues that could be used as alternative classrooms.
It is understood that structural engineers will tomorrow be sent to inspect hundreds of schools. And it has been reported that up to 7,000 at-risk schools have yet to be checked.
Jake Berry, the former Tory party chairman, has urged the Government “to build Nightingale schools around the country” similar to the emergency hospitals set up during Covid.
READ MORE MPs ‘deeply concerned’ dangerous concrete will shut hospitals as well as schools
Labour will seek a vote on Wednesday ordering ministers to reveal the full extent of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, or RAAC, in school buildings.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb has so far pledged only to publish a full list of affected schools “in due course”.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Parents and the public have the right to know where public buildings affected by this are, what ministers knew about the risk posed to life and why they acted to intervene only days before the start of the term.”
RAAC, which is 80 percent air, was used as roof, wall and floor slabs from the mid-50s to the mid-90s, when warnings it could suddenly collapse emerged. It was also used in hospitals, courts and other public buildings.
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Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield said that she fears youngsters are being disrupted again overnight.
She said: “Children need the reassurance that they will be able to continue to attend school this month, even if the Government has to step in to find them new buildings.”
Meanwhile, there are fears it could take years to fix the problems caused by RAAC. Wayne Bates, national negotiating official for teachers’ union NASUWT, said: “There’s a huge question mark about what the scale of this problem is.”
And Dame Meg Hillier, Labour chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said millions of pounds, an “eye-watering and wasteful” sum, is being spent on mitigating the risks in hospitals alone.
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